Cannabis Is Everywhere In The Czech Republic, So We Headed Over To Find Out Why They’re So Chilled About Getting Stoned

Now I don’t want to generalize all Sick Chirpsers and put you in the same hazy hot-box. But I’m willing to bet if any of you got elected to some kind of political office you wouldn’t get away with the old I never inhaled story. You would however get on well with people in the Czech Republic though cause it turns out they smoke a lot of green.

Every time I’ve played in the country once known as Bohemia someone has given me a fat bag of homegrown. One time the club manager laid a big old mound of green on the bar for us before we’d even sound checked. So I thought I’d do a bit of research and try and find out what has been going on.

Firstly is it legal? Well this has changed a bit over the years, I found this ridiculously vague law from 1999:

“Section 187a (1) A person who keeps, without authorization, a narcotic or psychotropic substance or a poison in a quantity greater than small shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of up to two years or by a pecuniary penalty.”

I’m not a judge but that seems pretty ambiguous. What the hell kind of measurement is ‘an amount greater than small’? When this law was written, if you were caught with a bit of weed that was deemed ‘small’ they gave you a 1000kc (around £30) fine. To put this in perspective, if you cross the street when the pedestrian light is red or your dog poos and you don’t clean it up then you get the same fine.

It changed in 2010 when a new law was implemented quantifying the amount. Weed, you are allowed just over a half ounce (15 grams) or you can grow up to 5 plants, Coke, 1 gram, Heroin, 1.5 grams, Crystal Meth, 2 grams etc. Again the dog poo equivalent fine still applies but in the case of weed it seems to be pretty much ignored unless you’re being really blatant with the 5-0. Selling is properly illegal though.

This might explain some of the predisposition to share weed the Czechs have, it’s fine to grow a bit and smoke it but selling is still a no no, so if everyone is just sharing with everyone then when you run out someone will give you a bit or pass you a spliff. Community spirit, we’re all in this together..